State Recognition of Out-of-State Gay Unions Again Upheld in Court (Updated)

November 19, 2009

Back in 2008 the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Arizona, and state senators Martin Golden and Serphin Maltese sued New York because Governor Paterson had directed state authorities to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere. They lost in State Supreme Court. The Fund went back at it, going to the higher Court of Appeals, and this morning they lost again. (Update: To be clear, the complaints in today’s case are different from that brought in the former, and have to do with directives of the State Department of Civil Service and Westchester County.)

The court’s ruling is described as “narrow,” meaning that while they affirmed that state agencies could acknowledge same-sex couples’ marital status in bestowing benefits specified in the complaint, they did not rule out all challenges to benefits for such couples in New York…

The court did express “hope that the Legislature will address this controversy.” (Said legislature is currently dragging its feet on the matter.) “We ought to avoid the confusion that would arise from a same-sex couple considered legally married by one agency for one purpose, but not married by another agency for a different purpose,” wrote Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick in a concurring opinion.

The Alliance Defense Fund can now find some other cases to throw at the courts, push this one toward the U.S. Supreme Court, or just call on God to smite New York, which we assume they are doing already. Image (cc) bobster1985.